One Year and One Day.

WARNING:
I feel obligated to warn you that this is a deeply personal entry. It deals with anger, loss and grief. For some people, these are repellant emotions and are just exceptionally unattractive. If you're one of those people, please just skip this whole entry. I'm trying to work something out here. To capture something. To explain something. And it's a raw, bloody mess.

It's also really poorly written.

So, maybe skip ahead and enjoy a nice Superman movie trailer and forget the heavy stuff, okay?



Funny how things that you thought you'd buried pop back up...

That's the last note that I received from the last girl that I ever reall, truly loved.

She gave me that in a packet that she sent me which also contained movies and books that I loaned her. Things returned, that had been lent. The note was new, though. And it was her way of saying that she was sorry about how things had turned out. And that she still loved me very much but knew that we couldn't be together.
And to explain why I hadn't heard anything from her in 2 months. (To be fair, I didn't contact her either.)

I took that note with me to work the next day and placed it in a folder of personal effects and forgot about it. I found it last month, looking for tax paperwork.

And today, while searching for work emails that I actually seem to have lost, I found a folder full of emails that she and I exchanged. There's about 12 of them. And they trace the beginnings of our relationship all the way from our first contact to 2 months after it ended. For 9 months, we were as much in love as two people can be. And then it had to end.

I re-read some of those emails. As it turns out, that was a stupid, stupid decision, because I am missing her terribly right now. But I did it anyways...

The first one was a long email that she sent me, telling me about her family. A primer course on the people who were important to her. Before there was even a hint of something developing between us, I knew I should keep it. I wanted to know about those people. Because I wanted to know about her.

The second email has a dozen or so picture attachments.
Her out with friends.
Her with her parents.
Her with her cat.
One of them, which I won't reprint here, was so lovely, that it nearly broke my heart the first time that I saw it. It's in black and white and she's looking away from the camera and you can see her face in profile. Her thin neck and her sharp nose and her sharp chin. Her hair is pulled back into a neat ponytail. And she's so, so lovely. (She told me later that it was taken on a hot summer day and that she was sweaty and nasty from a late night out before, but none of that was captured by the camera. She is beautiful in that picture. No two ways about it.) I discretely tucked it away on the corner of my computer desktop and looked at her for nine, happy months.

Skip ahead a few emails and you can see the first time that she said that she loved me. A surprise, it was tucked in the middle of an email about something else. I was stunned by her bravery.

Skip ahead some more and you can see a love letter that I wrote her. I can't believe that I actually wrote her a love letter. I can't believe that I was ever so free with my emotions. That I ever attempted poetry and charming words. I can't imagine doing that again for someone. Maybe something was lost here, after all.

Then it gets bad.

The next email was the break up email. (Technically, the breakup happened the night before on the phone. The email cleans up the messy details and expands on the theme.)

Things were not going well. She was seeing someone else. Or rather, an old relationship came back again and it was taking focus. Eclipsing me, just as the Earth's shadow slowly eclipses the moon's face and wipes it away.

I needed more from her. I needed to be the only one. And a relationship that happily existed in "VagueryLand" had to become more stable. It had to change. I felt like I was losing ground. Fading backwards. Losing something slowly.

So, I asked for more. I actually asked her to make a decision, me or him.

And she chose him.

Technically, he came first. And sometimes, Dear Reader, that's all that it takes.

The next day, the day that we settled all accounts and she gently let me know that she was going to choose him, was May 2nd, 2005. One year ago, yesterday.

How strange that I would stumble onto that file full of emails today. One year and one day after it all ended. What are the odds of that?

ONE YEAR LATER,

We are talking again, she and I.
We have been for a few months now.
We chat about our friends and gossip and joke around. She's still with that other guy and things are as strong as they ever have been between them. She's genuinely happy with him. And that's a small consolation. She is, of course, kind enough not to mention the particular details to me. We don't flirt anymore, though, and that absence is noticable in all of our interractions. I miss that the most. (I've actually blogged about what it felt like to start talking with her again, in a fictional piece here on Word. You can read it here. )

It's been a year. But it feels like twenty. It's hard to remember that there was ever a time when she and I were as close as we were. I have closed down memories and sections of my heart like old wings of large house. I can't believe I ever trusted someone that much. That I was that vulnerable with someone. (I actually have already blogged about how this feels, in a fiction piece, here on Word. You can read that entry, here.)

I was so optimistic about her and I. I had to be. This other guy was always on the periphery. There was always a threat that he might come back. I had to put that aside and love her anyways. Sure, it might not have been smart, but I couldn't imagine living any other way. I couldn't avoid her or pretend that I didn't love her, because I might've been hurt. I had to hope for the best. As bad as it ever got, afterwards, I never regretted it.

And honestly, I keep a candle in the window for her, figuratively speaking. I feel like part of me is waiting for her to be free from that relationship and to come back. I wouldn't care about guilt or shame or anger. I would just be happy to have her around again.

TEN MONTHS AGO...

The last night that she was in my life and my apartment, she and I shared a bottle of wine. We made love and laid in bed, talking. She was sick, so I just rubbed her back and we talked about light, easy things. There was no hint that it was the last night that we were going to be together. Things didn't get bad until a day or two later.

And after they did get bad and I realized that things were over, I discovered her wine glass was still in the sink, waiting to be washed. I washed and dried everything else in that sink, but never touched that wine glass.

I couldn't. I just couldn't.

Washing that and hanging it up in my wineglass rack meant that it REALLY was over. And I couldn't admit that.

Two months later, in a fit of self motivation, I finally did it. I finally hung it up. It's coincidence and not some sort of intentional protest, but I haven't taken it down since then. Now, there's actually a think layer of dust on it.

There's a metaphor for you.

I know that it still affects me very deeply. The only relationship that I've had since then was not a good one. I was closed off and detached from Day One. That poor girl only got 5% of me. Which was so unfair. But that was the best I could give her then. It's no wonder that she was frustrated so early on. She was dating a hollowed out man. And who wants that?

I don't know how to end this entry.

I've recounted some of the history here and shared how I'm feeling right now and why this is all coming back up again. And I'm embarrased to be sharing something so deeply personal. I want to wrap all of this up in a neat, ironic bow. I want to slap some sort of quaint, tidy little nugget of wisdom on it and consider it closed. (As I do with most of these entries.) But I can't think of what the point should be. Or what we could learn from this.
I suspect that there is no deeper meaning here.

Sometimes, things just don't work out well and it's nobody's fault.

Sometimes there's nothing you can do.

The simple truth is that one year and one day ago, I lost a very precious relationship and I'm still hurting about it. I still mark it's loss. I'm still the walking wounded.

Happy Anniverary, baby...

Mr. B.

PS. I told you not to read this blog for a few days. I told you it was going to be ugly. I'm sorry.